Senin, 02 Agustus 2010

Stars and the Quilts at the Bowers Museum


Star with Cut Out Chintz Applique
Collection of the Bowers Museum
Santa Ana, California
Estimated date 1820-1850

The Bowers Museum is showing the highlights of their quilt collection. Quilts: Two Centuries of American Tradition and Technique, curated by Julia D. Zgliniec, will be on exhibit from July 3rd through March 28, 2011. Click here to see more about the show: http://www.bowers.org/index.php/learn/events_details/480

The quilt above is a masterpiece star variation. We might call the pattern Star of Bethlehem. Another 19th-century name for these large stars pieced of diamonds was Rising Sun.

But this quilt is different from the usual diamond star (see my last post for the usual version). Notice the triangles bordering the star points and the quilt's edge. I'd guess the triangles are appliqued in a technique we might call dog-tooth applique.

These stars with patchwork edges are rare. The Museum of the Daughters of the American Revolution owns a similar quilt from Jefferson County, Virginia. Click on the link to see a photograph from the Quilt Index.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=46-7A-108
The detail photo shows the appliqued triangles quite clearly
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=46-7A-14E


The Heritage Quilt Project of New Jersey found one the family dated to 1842
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4A-7F-1D6
Again the detail shows the appliqued triangles
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4A-7F-7F4

And this one with exaggerated triangles:
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4A-7F-8C0
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4A-7F-8C2

(See the New Jersey Quilts book, page 72 and Ladies Circle Patchwork Quilts magazine from summer, 1983.) New Jersey seems to be the region for these stars, if they are regional.

(Isn't the Quilt Index a great thing!)

The International Quilt Study Collection and Museum (another great thing) has an example with a red dog-tooth border from the James Collection. It was made by Anna Chambers Deacon, possibly in Springfield, New Jersey. Click here to see a photo:
http://www.quiltstudy.org/includes/photos/quilt_database/large/1997_007_0701.jpg?PHPSESSID=bf577b00549c9bc75d5e8453048f8943

Below is a similar quilt from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a star edged with triangles, but in this case the triangles look to have been pieced in strips


Star with Pieced Edge
From the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Made in Perth Amboy, New Jersey between 1845 and 1848
Click here to read about it:


And this tiny photo from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum at Colonial Williamsburg shows one with what looks to be a pieced strip or maybe a plain strip edging the star.

Click here to see an even more unusual version in the IQSC's James collection:

So we have three categories of Star of Bethlehem  variations, numbered 4005 in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I'm writing in some new numbers on that page in my copy.
4005.1 is the star with a plain strip pieced around the star's edge
4005.2 is the star with the appliqued dog tooth edge
4005.3 is the star with the pieced sawtooth edge
4005.5 is the star with miscellaneous triangles on the edge

Those of you who love categorization will be pleased. Those of you who love romantic names may be disappointed. We seem to have no name for the variations. Quilt pattern names tend to come from the 1890-1960 period and these designs don't seem to have been recorded. I'm not going to give them any names. It just seems too presumptuous. They are sort of like feathered stars....


Here's a wacky example with the unpieced strip added to the edge (like 4005.1)
It's from quilt dealer Laura Fisher.

But, I digress. Go see the show at the Bowers.

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